Original Sin?

FrG - if a person is an atheist, would God, who is supposed to be all-loving, not just forgive them their trespass of forsaking him/her and allow them into the kingdom of heaven?

Quote: aceofspades

FrG - if a person is an atheist, would God, who is supposed to be all-loving, not just forgive them their trespass of forsaking him/her and allow them into the kingdom of heaven?

I think FrG will say that the atheist will have to serve his due time in purgatory but will eventually make it to heaven, unless he was a hopeless case, in which case he goes straight to hell and stays there. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Quote: Wizard

I think FrG will say that the atheist will have to serve his due time in purgatory but will eventually make it to heaven, unless he was a hopeless case, in which case he goes straight to hell and stays there. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Purgatory is a Catholic concept so I assume he would agree.

And Nareed will say, "Would an atheist even want to enter Heaven?"

Depictions of it, and talk about it, are not as abundant as those pertaining to Hell. The general impression I get is either of 1) a palcid tranquil palce where nothing ever happens and 2) an endless religious service. To be sure there's the depiction in "What Dreams May Come," which is lovely and lively, but also rather vague (and in the end you see what people prefer anyway).

Quote: FrGamble

I think religion and faith, or lack there of, indeed begin as a product of the environment. However, when we are older and wiser and seriously look at these issues for ourselves things can change and become more real and important for us (or less so).

Now this is as close as I've seen anyone come to recognizing the missing element in the pointless nature/nurture controversy: reason.

Quote:

That is why it is so painful to me that people seem like they are less and less interested in seriously talking about the meaning and purpose of life and if there are supernatural realities to our life because they are more interested in what Justin Beiber is doing. Apathy not atheism is the greatest challenge to faith in God.

That was a great run-on sentence ruined by the period before "Apathy." :)

Seriously, I agree up to a point: people do not think about life and much less about purpose.

But then they must often confront questions such as "what is the meaning of life?" which is so hard to answer because the question is meaningless. It's so particularly meaningless, I cannot find a good comparison for it. try to define the question and see what happens.

The purpose of life is something else. That's for every person to decide. For too many people there is no particular purpose. For others the purpose is to waste one's life.

Quote: Wizard

I think FrG will say that the atheist will have to serve his due time in purgatory but will eventually make it to heaven, unless he was a hopeless case, in which case he goes straight to hell and stays there. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Yep, that is pretty much it - the Wiz knows me pretty well.

So, just to clarify. It was the talking serpent that committed the original sin by deceiving Eve, right? And then we're just born with that in our DNA.

Quote: s2dbaker

So, just to clarify. It was the talking serpent that committed the original sin by deceiving Eve, right? And then we're just born with that in our DNA.

....just got real!

Quote: aceofspades

....just got real!

Makes total sense to me.

Glad it makes sense to someone, because it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I think Blasé Pascal said it best when he wrote about Original Sin, here is a little quote from him:

Quote:

Certainly nothing offends us more rudely than this doctrine; and yet, without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves. The knot of our condition takes its twists and turns in this abyss, so that man is more inconceivable without this mystery than this mystery is inconceivable to man.